Japan's Diversity Dilemmas

Japan's Diversity Dilemmas PDF Author: Soo im Lee
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595362575
Category : Citizenship
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Japan's Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education reveals how Japanese society is now in the midst of dramatic transformation brought on by demographic change and globalization. Foreigners are coming to Japan and many more will come in the near future to meet the demands of an economy that needs workers to compensate for an extremely low birth rate. The ramifications of this influx of foreigners into a society that has based its identity on a mythical ethnic purity are enormous. This book examines the effects of globalization on both new and older ethnic communities. It shows the ways in which minorities, in particular Koreans, are changing their conceptions and practices regarding nationality. It explores issues of human rights and emerging conceptions of citizenship in Japan. It also looks at how forces of globalization are affecting the state ideology of homogeneity and how a new image of diversity and multiculturalism is slowly developing. Several authors focus their attention on implications for education in citizenship education, ethnic education, and international education. Japan's Diversity Dilemmas is not just about minorities, but addresses issues of diversity that impact Japan as a nation in three areas: ethnicity, citizenship, and education. As the population diversifies, the linking of ethnicity and citizenship is being challenged and education is a battleground where these struggles occur. This collection of papers by an interdisciplinary group of authors helps readers to understand Japan's evolving conceptions of the nation and its attempts to balance tensions of unity and diversity. 'Japan's Diversity Dilemmas looks at precisely the kind of issues that need examination and discussion, as Japan stands on the cusp of potentially huge demographic and social changes. This collection of studies will enrich and inform classroom and public discourse and those who follow these issues will find this book essential." -Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News and former Fulbright Fellow, University of Tokyo

Japan's Diversity Dilemmas

Japan's Diversity Dilemmas PDF Author: Soo im Lee
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595362575
Category : Citizenship
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
Japan's Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education reveals how Japanese society is now in the midst of dramatic transformation brought on by demographic change and globalization. Foreigners are coming to Japan and many more will come in the near future to meet the demands of an economy that needs workers to compensate for an extremely low birth rate. The ramifications of this influx of foreigners into a society that has based its identity on a mythical ethnic purity are enormous. This book examines the effects of globalization on both new and older ethnic communities. It shows the ways in which minorities, in particular Koreans, are changing their conceptions and practices regarding nationality. It explores issues of human rights and emerging conceptions of citizenship in Japan. It also looks at how forces of globalization are affecting the state ideology of homogeneity and how a new image of diversity and multiculturalism is slowly developing. Several authors focus their attention on implications for education in citizenship education, ethnic education, and international education. Japan's Diversity Dilemmas is not just about minorities, but addresses issues of diversity that impact Japan as a nation in three areas: ethnicity, citizenship, and education. As the population diversifies, the linking of ethnicity and citizenship is being challenged and education is a battleground where these struggles occur. This collection of papers by an interdisciplinary group of authors helps readers to understand Japan's evolving conceptions of the nation and its attempts to balance tensions of unity and diversity. 'Japan's Diversity Dilemmas looks at precisely the kind of issues that need examination and discussion, as Japan stands on the cusp of potentially huge demographic and social changes. This collection of studies will enrich and inform classroom and public discourse and those who follow these issues will find this book essential." -Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News and former Fulbright Fellow, University of Tokyo

Readings on Diversity Issues: From hate speech to identity and privilege in Japan

Readings on Diversity Issues: From hate speech to identity and privilege in Japan PDF Author: Lisa Rogers
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1365456196
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Japanese society is now in the midst of a dramatic transformation. An extremely low birth rate and rapidly aging society is resulting in a declining Japanese labor force, fueling a need for non-Japanese laborers and others to maintain economic growth. However, despite a sense of impending crises, Japan continues to be ill equipped to accept non-Japanese workers and add to the diversity already existing within its borders. Currently, many of the benefits of inclusive societies, which lead to a more innovative and fulfilling society, are being curtailed by a pervading notion that Japan is monocultural and that diversity leads to too many problems. Readings on diversity issues: From hate speech to identity and privilege in Japan examines the state of diversity in past and present-day Japan and how Japanese people and the government navigate JapanÕs multicultural society, as well as the way cultural minorities negotiate their lives in a country which still has difficulty accepting diversity.

Dilemmas of a Trading Nation

Dilemmas of a Trading Nation PDF Author: Mireya Solis
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729200
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan—and the United States—in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout. Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade. In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction—economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan

The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan PDF Author: Mieko Yamada
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803973
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan examines the complex nature of Japan’s promotion of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In globalized societies where people with different native languages communicate through English, multicultural and multilinguistic interactions are widely created. This book takes the opportunity to look at Japan and examines how these multiple realities have affected its English language teaching within the domestic context. The myth of Japan’s racial and ethnic homogeneity may hinder many Japanese in recognizing realities of its own minority groups such as Ainu, Zainichi Koreans, and Brazilian Japanese, who are in the same EFL classrooms. Acknowledging a variety of English uses and users in Japan, this book emphasizes the influence of Japan’s recent domestic diversity on its EFL curriculum and urges that such changes should be addressed. It suggests new directions for incorporating multicultural perspectives in order to develop English language education in Japan and other Asian contexts where English is often taught as a foreign language. Chapters include: Social, cultural, and political background of Japan’s EFL education Race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism Representations of diversity in Japanese EFL Textbooks Perceptions of English learning and diversity in Japan The role of EFL education in multicultural Japan

Transcultural Japan

Transcultural Japan PDF Author: David Blake Willis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134204027
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Transcultural Japan provides a critical examination of being Other in Japan. Portraying the multiple intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the book suggests ways in which the transcultural borderlands of Japan reflect globalization in this island nation. The authors show the diversity of Japan from the inside, revealing an extraordinarily complex new society in sharp contrast to the persistent stereotypical images held of a regimented, homogeneous Japan. Unsettling as it may be, there are powerful arguments here for looking at the meanings of globalization in Japan through these diverse communities and individuals. These are not harmonious, utopian communities by any means, as they are formed in contexts, both global and local, of unequal power relations. Yet it is also clear that the multiple processes associated with globalization lead to larger hybridizations, a global mélange of socio-cultural, political, and economic forces and the emergence of what could be called trans-local Creolized cultures. Transcultural Japan reports regional, national, and cosmopolitan movements. Characterized by global flows, hybridity, and networks, this book documents Japan’s new lived experiences and rapid metamorphosis. Accessible and engaging, this broad-based volume is an attractive and useful resource for students of Japanese culture and society, as well as being a timely and revealing contribution to research scholars and for those interested in race, ethnicity, cultural identities and transformations.

Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship

Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship PDF Author: Leo Paul Dana
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1847209963
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 849

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Book Description
Professor Dana and his colleagues have carefully and successfully put together a collection of chapters on ethnic minority entrepreneurship from all parts of the world. The book comprises eight parts and 49 chapters. Undoubtedly, given the massive size and content of a 835-page book, it is fair to ask, is it value for money? The answer is unequivocally yes! A further comment on the content of the book should probably reassure potential readers and buyers of the book. . . This collection is undoubtedly rich, creative and varied in many respects. Therefore, it will be of great benefit to researchers and scholars alike. . . I will strongly recommend this book to researchers, students, teachers and policy-makers. Aminu Mamman, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research The volume presents an impressive panorama of studies on ethnic entrepreneurships ranging from Dalits in India to Roma entrepreneurs in Hungary. B.P. Corrie, Choice From a focus on middle-man minorities in the 1950s, the study of minority ethnic entrepreneurship has evolved into a vast undertaking. A major ingredient in this expansion is the massive population movements of the past thirty years that have created ethnic minority communities in almost all advanced economies. From New York to San Francisco, from Birmingham to Hamburg, from the Chinese in Canada, to the Turks in Finland, to the Ghanians in South Africa to the Lebanese in New Zealand, more than twenty chapters in this volume treat small-scale ethnic entrepreneurship and the cultural and institutional resources which support it. At the other end of the spectrum, the ethnic Chinese have created ever larger multi-divisional enterprises in the host societies of Southeast Asia. At the mid-point of the spectrum, analyzed in an elegant paper by Ivan Light, is the recently identified transmigrant entrepreneur accultured in two societies but assimilated in neither whose special endowments have provided the lynchpin for for much of the international trade expansion in the global economy over the past decade. And Dana and Morris provide us with much more Afro-American entrepreneurship, caste and class, the theory of clubs, women ethnic entrepreneurs, minority ethnicity and IPOs. In the quality of its contributions and in the reach of its coverage, this Handbook attains a very high standard. Peter Kilby, Wesleyan University, US The new Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, edited by Léo-Paul Dana, constitutes a major contribution to the literature on ethnic enterprise. Unlike previous work, which tended to focus on one country or one region of the world, this book is global in scope. You will find chapters on America, Europe, and Asia, as well as integrative essays that review important principles and concepts from the literature on ethnic entrepreneurship. I particularly appreciate the historical and evolutionary framework within which the contributions are situated. This book belongs on the shelf of everyone who has an interest in immigration and entrepreneurship or ethnic entrepreneurship more generally. Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina, US This exhaustive, interdisciplinary Handbook explores the phenomena of immigration and ethnic minority entrepreneurship in light of marked changes since the mid-twentieth century and the advent of easier, more affordable travel and more open and integrated national economies. The international contributors, key experts in their respective fields, illustrate that myriad ethnic minorities exist across the globe, and that their entrepreneurship can and does significantly influence national economies. The contributors go on to promote our understanding of which factors make for successful entrepreneurship, and, perhaps more importantly, how negative political consequences that members of successful entrepreneurial ethnic minorities might face can be minimized. This extensive collection of current research on entrepr

Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship

Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship PDF Author: David Chapman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134512910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Japan’s Household Registration System (koseki seido) is an extremely powerful state instrument, and is socially entrenched with a long history of population governance, social control and the maintenance of social order. It provides identity whilst at the same time imposing identity upon everyone registered, and in turn, the state receives validity and legitimacy from the registration of its inhabitants. The study of the procedures and mechanisms for identifying and documenting people provides an important window into understanding statecraft, and by examining the koseki system, this book provides a keen insight into social and political change in Japan. By looking through the lens of the koseki system, the book takes both an historical as well as a contemporary approach to understanding Japanese society. In doing so, it develops our understanding of contemporary Japan within the historical context of population management and social control; reveals the social effects and influence of the koseki system throughout its history; and presents new insights into citizenship, nationality and identity. Furthermore, this book develops our knowledge of state functions and indeed the nation state itself, through engaging critically with important issues relating to the koseki while at the same time providing a platform for further investigation. The contributors to this volume utilise a variety of disciplinary areas including history, gender studies, sociology, law and anthropology, and each chapter provides insights that bring us closer to a comprehensive grasp of the role, effects and historical background of what is a crucial and influential instrument of the Japanese state. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese history, Japanese culture and society, Japanese studies, Asian social policy and demography more generally.

Language Policy in Japan

Language Policy in Japan PDF Author: Nanette Gottlieb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139504797
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Over the last thirty years, two social developments have occurred that have led to a need for change in language policy in Japan. One is the increase in the number of migrants needing opportunities to learn Japanese as a second language, the other is the influence of electronic technologies on the way Japanese is written. This book looks at the impact of these developments on linguistic behaviour and language management and policy, and at the role of language ideology in the way they have been addressed. Immigration-induced demographic changes confront long cherished notions of national monolingualism and technological advances in electronic text production have led to textual practices with ramifications for script use and for literacy in general. The book will be welcomed by researchers and professionals in language policy and management and by those working in Japanese Studies.

Japan's Demographic Revival

Japan's Demographic Revival PDF Author: Stephen Robert Nagy
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814678880
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Japan's Demographic Revival shifts discussions about employing immigration as the 'best' or 'sole' solution to assuaging Japan's demographic quagmire to a more systematic approach that identifies structural, organizational and cultural impediments that contribute to Japan's (and other countries') declining demographic situations. This edited volume also sheds light on the plethora of changes required to produce a demographically sustainable Japan.Part One includes chapters explaining the endogenous, ethnocultural and structural obstacles that link ethnocultural understandings of citizenship and nationality. Part Two consists of chapters that provide insight into the societal barriers that exist in Japan to address demographic issues. Part Three shifts its focus away from identifying and analyzing the structural, organizational and cultural factors towards chapters that are policy oriented, linking existing policies as contributing factors behind Japan's demographic challenge.

Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo

Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo PDF Author: Mark K. Watson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317807561
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This book is about the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, living in and around Tokyo; it is, therefore, about what has been pushed to the margins of history. Customarily, anthropologists and public officials have represented Ainu issues and political affairs as limited to rural pockets of Hokkaido. Today, however, a significant proportion of the Ainu people live in and around major cities on the main island of Honshu, particularly Tokyo. Based on extensive original ethnographic research, this book explores this largely unknown diasporic aspect of Ainu life and society. Drawing from debates on place-based rights and urban indigeneity in the twenty-first century, the book engages with the experiences and collective struggles of Tokyo Ainu in seeking to promote a better understanding of their cultural and political identity and sense of community in the city. Looking in-depth for the first time at the urban context of ritual performance, cultural transmission and the construction of places or ‘hubs’ of Ainu social activity, this book argues that recent government initiatives aimed at fostering a national Ainu policy will ultimately founder unless its architects are able to fully recognize the historical and social complexities of the urban Ainu experience.